Stronger Internet Exchange Points

22/12/2016

This year, LACNIC’s Internet Security and Stability Program offered workshops, technical talks and tutorials in at least seven countries across the region with the aim of contributing to strengthen Latin American and Caribbean Internet Exchange Points (IXPs).

Workshops were conducted at IXPs in Bolivia, Honduras and Belize; interconnection and peering workshops were held in Panama, Cuba and Costa Rica; and technical talks were organized for operators in Panama, Cuba, Bolivia and Argentina. Approximately 480 professionals from the region participated in these activities.

As part of its strategy for a more stable, resilient and secure network, LACNIC promotes local and regional interconnection, contributing to the development of a better Internet in the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean, noted Guillermo Cicileo, coordinator of LACNIC’s Internet Security and Stability Program.

This program seeks to consolidate existing and strengthen recently created IXPs by offering workshops, providing support in the form of infrastructure, organizational and operational models, the +RAICES program, and the deployment of RPKI and IPv6, among other initiatives.

Cicileo noted that “security and stability are strongly interrelated and cannot be separated when promoting a secure and stable Internet as a key factor for the region’s social and economic development.” He also observed that LACNIC coordinates its work for protecting Internet infrastructure at regional and global level, particularly on topics relating to  inter-domain routing security and stability.

The expansion anticipated for the Internet in the coming years and the traffic increase generated by the new devices connected to the Internet of Things will demand “that more traffic remains local and greater interconnection between operators, in order to improve connectivity both in terms of stability and band width as well as in terms of latency and jitter,” added Cicileo.

Local Internet exchange points can also help mitigate many of the problems related to global routing, and even avoid DDoS attacks in traffic links.

According to the expert, Internet traffic in more developed countries tends to be mostly local (> 70%) and only a small portion is routed through transit links. “This improves Internet quality in each country and results in the production of locally developed and hosted content,” he said.

He added that much work needs to be done in the region as, while the number of exchange points has increased, this number is “still insufficient and in many countries operators are not interconnected.” Even in countries where IXPs already exist, “traffic isn’t routed through these IXPs and interconnection continues to be achieved through other countries, mainly the United States.”